1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an input apparatus and input method for allowing a user to input instructions for selecting and carrying out a function, by using options individually assigned to a plurality of functions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a processing apparatus capable of performing a plurality of functions may have an input apparatus including an icon display device for simultaneously displaying icons, which are examples of options or symbols corresponding to the respective functions, in a display region of the display device for allowing a user to input instructions to the processing apparatus for selecting and carrying out a function. An image showing the plurality of icons in the display region is hereinafter called an icon menu. When the icon menu is displayed, the user operates what is known as cursor keys included in the input apparatus. In response to this operation, the input apparatus selects and enters one of the icons. The processing apparatus regards the function corresponding to the icon entered as being instructed for execution, and carries out this function.
The icon menu display apparatus in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 7-49764 (1995) and the document preparing apparatus in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication JP-A 5-28157 (1993) may be cited as conventional examples of the above input apparatus. The icon menu display apparatus is devised to indicate, in a form readily understandable to a user, functions of a word processor corresponding to a plurality of icons used for selecting the functions. For this purpose, the apparatus presents an icon menu with a background in the form of a three-dimensional view of a workroom including a desk and a wall surface. Each icon has a pattern representing the function corresponding thereto, and is disposed in a position on the background corresponding to the pattern. In this case, the icons are arranged in a plurality of rows and columns on the background. The document preparing apparatus, in order to improve input operability of a Japanese word processor, for example, additionally displays the current date and time on an icon menu having a matrix arrangement of icons individually corresponding to a plurality of functions.
Where icons are arranged in a matrix as in these conventional examples, four cursor keys are usually provided for the user to use as an operating device for inputting instructions. The four cursor keys correspond, respectively, to opposite directions parallel to the two axes of an X-Y rectangular coordinate system set to the display region. When the processing apparatus is portable, the apparatus should preferably be designed as small as possible. It is difficult to provide four cursor keys for a portable apparatus. A portable apparatus usually includes two cursor keys corresponding to two opposite directions parallel to one of the axes of an X-Y rectangular coordinate system acting as a reference axis. That is, the two cursor keys correspond to upward and downward directions or rightward and leftward directions. The upward direction is the one in which the y-coordinate increases or decreases. The leftward direction is the one in which the x-coordinate increases or decreases.
Where, for example, the cursor keys correspond to the upward and downward directions, an icon menu 1, as shown in FIG. 31, may include a plurality of icons 2-4 arranged vertically in one column. In this case, the number of icons in the icon menu 1 tends to be smaller than the number of icons that can be displayed in a matrix at a time, provided that the same icons are arranged in the same display region.
To increase the number of icons in the icon menu 1 from the example shown in FIG. 31, an icon menu 7, as shown in FIG. 32, may include a plurality of icons 8-13 arranged in a matrix. In FIG. 32, the matrix has three rows and two columns. In inputting an instruction to select one of the icons 8-13 by operating the two cursor keys corresponding to the upward and downward directions, it is difficult to grasp and even confusing whether the upward and downward directions are given priority over the rightward and leftward directions, or vice versa, as directions in which a change is to be made to the one selected icon in response to the cursor key operation. That is, it is difficult for the user to recognize only by observing the icon menu 7 whether a cursor key operation causes the one icon to be selected by first changing to a different icon to the right or left of a currently selected icon, and then changing from the different icon to another different icon over or under it, or by first changing to a different icon over or under the currently selected icon, and then changing from the different icon to another different icon to the right or left thereof. In this case, therefore, it is difficult for the user to carry out intuitively an operation to input an instruction for selecting an icon corresponding to a desired function from among the plurality of icons.